Zero Point Relay
"I Don't know what worries me more, the fact that these colossal things exist, or that whomever built them just left them floating around for the rest of us to play with." ~Attributed to Tibard Galthanis, president of GRS Ipl. ---- One usually knows a Zero-point Relay when they see it. Consisting of a connected pair of 7 to 21 Kilometer long Booms connected by three Sphere nodules near the "rear' of the device, and slightly curved one direction or another (as if one could link several of them together side to side and form a sphere). The material the booms are made of is unknown, the power source is unknown, and the internal workings are also unknown. The reason for this, as well as the name given, is because the entire apparatus seems to remain operational at a zero-point level of energy unless it's powered up, which absorbs all scanning beams, and resists any structural damage as it seems all energies from heat to kinetic is spread out over a significant portion of the device making taking readings or damaging them impossible. It has been theorized that enough energy expended over the span of a Short amount of time while the relay is active may be able to crack open or destroy the device, however this same theory would require enough energy to break open a moon, and there is still a question on whether or not the relay would explode with all the combined energy used on it, or if whatever the power sources are would be equivalent to a Supernova and thus make destruction rather suicidal. The Relays emit no heat, light or other types of radiation emissions, or at least nothing technically readable by modern sensors. They do have a Gravity shadow of mass, though it seems to be much less than one would expect of such a large apparatus. The exteriors have no markings, or designs of any kind and when not powered up could simply appear to be some kind of solar energy collector that drifted out of orbit. There are far less Zero Point Relays in the Milky Way neighborhood of Galactic clusters than other types of Legacy transit devices, though still totaling nearly a hundred. Most are found drifting in orbit around suns, or just on the outskirts of a planetary system. Some believe there may be more still drifting in interstellar space having escaped the gravity of a system and not yet picked up by another. The Systems that seem to have Relays also tend to be near older stars, ones that have been around for many millions of years and have not yet been found in any of the newer formations from nebulae or "nursery zones" with newer stars. Whatever systems are used to operate the Relays responds to radio signals on specific Frequencies. No other form of Communication has seemed to work to activate them. They have 3 states, Off, Transmit and Receive. Off being the default state, Sending a signal for transmitting consists of a signal that includes the coordinates of the receiving Relay, which causes the Relay to power up and prepare for transmission. Up until the ship seeking transmission is at the first field, shutting off the request to transmit will cause the Relay to power back down. Once the vessel is at the first point it's committed to transit. (No drive known has yet been able to stop a Transit once the ship has passed through the first field.) A relay set on Receive, can only be triggered by a transmitting Relay and has not yet been able to be triggered by any signal sent by a local object. ---- What it does When the signal for requested transmission is sent, the two booms begin to Glow and form a nebulous field on the inside of the curved area from the 3rd node onward. The second stage is a solidifying of a circular or oval at the first node back, then a second and third field form at the other two nodes. In order to initiate transit the ship flies into the first field, it's then carried along to the Second and then third and disappears from the relay site. At the Receiving end, a relay will begin to power up as well, the field will form but only Two of the Ovoid fields will form where the ship appears from the field at the first and then is finished deposited at the second and can then proceed to navigate on it's own. Thankfully this system seems to be a way to keep from trying to transit from a Relay that is actually receiving and thus avoiding any potential difficulties with two ships traveling along the same pathway in opposite directions. Though all the physics involved are unknown, what is believed to occur is the field that is formed as part of transit is a Dimensional Wormhole between the transmitter and Receiving Relay. When the Signal is transmitted requesting transit, the relay scans the requesting ship. When it passes through the first field the scan is confirmed for amount of matter, the second field Energizes the matter to begin the transmission process, and the third field Applies the energized matter to a Exotic status something like giving the particles of the Ship the same attributes of Tachyon Imaginary Mass and Neutrinos. There, due to the way the point to point wormhole is set up, all as one "Super particle" (A term used by physicists for when an effect treats an entire object made up of individual particles as a single particle for terms of momentum and placement) Races at faster than the Speed of light through the Wormhole. When it arrives at the reception point, the First field re-integrates material properties on the vessel, and the second field De-energizes the craft and lets it go back under it's own power. Naturally it's near impossible to determine all the particular effects on the Ship, the energy output of the device when powered up interferes with scanning apparatus, and the ship itself once begun in transit ceases to experience Entropy for the Several seconds it's going from point to point. Though based on residual energy and the way the system seems to work this is the most likely theory as to how the Relays operate. ---- Theories as to purpose Since their discovery several decades ago, there have been many theories as to what their purpose is. The fact that there are no external markings, or accessible database makes these theories un-provable at current. The First theory is that they were initially intended to be an improved form of transit for the same species that built the original Dimensional Transit gate network. Intended to replace the slower gate network with a much faster system, but they were unable to implement more than the initial prototypes before their decline, or simply abandoned the project for their own reasons. A second wide-held theory is they were prototype wormhole generators built by the same beings who created the Astria Portia, until they discovered a much easier way of using a planet based gate system for less material and left the prototype ship-movers where they were powered down since they had no need any longer. The fact that samples of material stuck to the exterior of the Relays (From perhaps ancient asteroid collisions) Shows the Relay system to be older than the oldest discovered Stargate lends credence to this. A wide-held third theory is that they weren't intended for this galaxy to begin with. They were actually manufactured long ago in another smaller galactic Group or Stellar Cluster that collided with the Milky Way ages ago and were randomly scattered. The fact that a Relay will begin a power up sequence seemingly before checking to make certain there's another Relay at the given coordinates (though if there's no relay to receive at the coordinates it will power back down before fully initializing) leads those who agree with this to believe that there's no defined coordinate listing to work with, it merely is designed to go from point to point wherever the other point may be. Another Wide-held theory is that they were designed to be used in Stellar Engineering or Megastructure construction. The various sizes and similar design would indicate that these devices are tools used to move whole masses of stellar matter, from planetoids to full stars (it's theorized that several can be "linked up" relatively around a stellar body and transit whole stars from one point to another) Which can be useful if one wishes to habitate a binary system, or due to a star's collapse one cam move an entire planet to another system with a younger star. Or if one were seeking to build a megastructure around a star, it would be easy to send the materials in the form of a Planetoid to a Central mining and processing facility rather than mine the materials on site and then transit them as finished products. The Final theory is based on the assumption of how once a civilization reaches a point where they are encapsulating a star, no one system has enough materials to do so, so they must harvest other systems. Sending all the raw material to where one is building the structure using the Relays is an obvious choice. Then when construction is completed, it's much easier to shut down the "tools" used in that phase in construction than gather them back up. Just like ancient workers who would leave pulleys and carts and tools behind when a mine was finished since they had no further use for the items and breaking them back down was much more trouble than leaving them, so to dis whatever ancient civilization leave behind their "hammers and Chisels" on the Galaxy as they moved on into their new home. ---- Additional To date, there has been no known connection made between the Relays in the Milky Way Neighborhood, and any other major galaxy. Several of the minor satellite galaxies have one or two Relays in them, but those are few and far between. Though it's also true that given the sheer amount of space in the universe, this doesn't preclude there being other relays out there, just ones that have not had the coordinates close enough to make contact.